Toward incident reporting (IR) systems: A safety culture survey within the oncology network of a northern Italian region
e17527 Background: Physicians are reluctant partners in error reporting. Insufficient evidence exists on what may affect IR in a specific cultural and organizational context. The primary endpoint of our study was to offer a critical perspective on the dominant attitudes toward IR systems among health operators of Friuli-Venezia Giulia cancer network. The survey was part of a Health Department patient safety project. Methods: A preliminary PubMed and ASCO database search was performed (keywords: incident/error reporting, attitudes, barriers, blame/safety culture, cancer, oncology, chemotherapy). Two web-based questionnaires were administered to health personnel of Oncology Units (OU) with developing and existing IR systems, respectively. Data were collected in a MySQL database and managed by PhpMyAdmin. SAS 9.1 was used for the analysis of frequency distributions. Results: Target population: 14 OU; 2 University Hospitals, 1 Scientific Institute for Research, Hospitalization, and Health Care (SIRHHC) (2 OU), 10 Hospital Centers; 262 operators (83 physicians, 172 nurses, 2 pharmacists, 5 technicians). Overall response rate: 44.6%; physician/nurse 59/36%; University Hospital (n = 99)/SIRHHC (n = 55)/Hospital Center (n = 101) 73%/9%/38%. Knowledge of risk management issues: 86% (90% of untrained operators from IR-free centers). Eighty-six percent of all operators showed a favourable attitude toward voluntary IR systems. Main reasons: patient safety improvement (65%); organizational growth (38%); professional duty (20.5%). A 78.5% preference for computerized forms was recorded. On a five-point scale, IR features rating 5 in >50% of the answers were: simplicity (85%); getting a feed-back (76%); exhaustivity (66%); adoption of organization more than individual recommendations (59%). Specific training, feedback guarantee and plainness of reporting forms were suggested by 90, 64, and 51% of all operators as essential measures for system acceptance and user satisfaction. Conclusions: Logistic and organizational factors (i.e., time constraints, work overload, resource allocation to incident reporting more than investigation and learning back) should be taken in account by county health directors aiming for successful reporting systems. No significant financial relationships to disclose.